An industrial robot comprises a manipulator and a control system. The manipulator comprises links movable relative to each other about a plurality of joints. The links are different robot parts such as a base, arms, and wrist. Each joint has joint components such as a motor, motor gear and motor bearings. The movements of the manipulator are driven by the motors. The control system comprises one or more computers and drive units for controlling the manipulator. The speeds and accelerations of the links are controlled by the control system of the robot that generates control signals to the motors.
Industrial robots are used in industrial and commercial applications to perform precise and repetitive movements. It is then important for a faultless functionality of the robot that the industrial robot is performing according to its nominal performance, that means that the links and joints has to bee in good condition and perform together in an expected way.
However it is difficult to detect or determine if an industrial robot is not performing according to its nominal performance. The operator, such as a service technician, has to rely on what he sees and information from the control system about the performance of the robot such as the position and speed of the motors taken from readings on sensors on the manipulator. The operator then analyse the current condition of the robot based on his personal experience resulting in a varying diagnosis due to subjective measures. In many cases the operator analysing the current condition and performance of the robot also needs to evaluate information from different sources, such as different motors at the same time or external conditions in the facility where the robot is located or is even faced with an emergency stop. To find the cause of a failure the operator may have to try different hypothesis and it is therefore time consuming and often results in long stand-still periods for the robot causing huge costs.
Also due to frequent personal rotation today, operators of robot service technician staff do not have sufficient experience to diagnose and isolate a failure in the performance of the robot.
Further, if a failure in performance causing an emergency stop occurs, it is difficult to isolate the problem cause and what link or part of the robot that needs special attention.
The document: Lee S et al:“Perception-net based geometric data fusion for state estimation and system self-calibration”, Proceedings of the 1997 IEEE/RSJ international conference on intelligent Robot and Systems, Innovative Robotics for real-world application, IROS '97 (Cat. No. 97CH36108) IEEE New York, N.Y., USA, vol. 3,1997, pages 1375a-g, 1376, XP-002449427: 0-7803-4119-8, discloses a method of automatically reducing uncertainties and calibrating possible biases involved in sensed data and extracted features by a system based on the geometric data fusion. A perception net, as a structural representation of the sensing capabilities of a system, connects features of various levels of abstraction, referred to as logical sensors with their functional relationships as constraints to be satisfied. Data fusion is presented as a unified framework for computing forward and backward propagations through which the net achieves the self-reduction of uncertainties and self calibration of biases. Said document does not mention anything about the use of the results of the performed state estimation for predicting a residual lifetime of a specific component of a robot system or a whole robot system.
Document U.S. Pat. No. 5,819,202 discloses an apparatus for detecting an abnormality of a control system. An internal property calculating section of the control system calculates an internal property of the control system on the basis of a command value representing a position or a speed of the control system. Said document does not mention anything about the use of the detection of an abnormality for predicting a residual lifetime of a specific component of a robot system or a whole robot system.
Document US 2004/0260481 A1 provides a method for monitoring movable parts of a machine. At least two measuring devices for detecting different measured quantities are provided. A comparison unit compares a first measure result with at least a second measure result of the measured quantity. Said comparison is not used for any predicting a residual lifetime of a specific component of a robot system or a whole robot system.